His comments at a conference organised by the Afghan parliament's Women's Affairs Committee provoked outrage among human rights campaigners and demands for President Hamid Karzai to sack him.

Mr Ghaleb told delegates that 250 women living in 12 foreign-funded shelters were being encouraged to disobey their parents.

"Mostly they were encouraging girls, saying, 'If your father says anything bad to you don't listen to him, if your mother says anything to you don't listen to them. There are safe houses for you where you can stay.' What safe houses? What sort of immorality and prostitution was not happening at those places?" he said.

Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign minister, said she was "deeply troubled" by his comments which sabotaged efforts to protect women from violence and sexual abuse.

"Too many Afghan women have experienced violence, gender based and sexual, often on a repeated basis," she said in a statement. "Women forced to resort to shelters are amongst the bravest Afghans we know."